10 runners showed up on Monday night for the school run out to Barnes Primary.  Mindful of the GoodGym challenge to clock up our miles over January, Mark offered us a longer ‘interesting’ route that would take us around a section of the perimeter of Richmond Park, instead of the shorter more direct route along the main road.  When it came to the vote, however, only Andy from Hounslow put up his hand for the long run.  (Methinks Hounslow have their eyes on the prize for completing the most miles in January.)   Now, it must be said, Richmond GoodGym haven’t had much luck in the past with the direct route to this task location.  On our first trip, we lost half the pack on the way there and then left one of the team behind on the way back.  (We’ve been very good at headcounting since then…)  So, this time we were careful not to lose anyone. Barnes Primary had invited us back to get busy with some brooms, sweeping up around their two sandpits and clearing up after a truck reversed into their school gate.  We completed the task in good time and left no runner behind on the way home – a successful mission for a cold, dark January night. Now a quick reminder to link your Strava or Runkeeper account to your GoodGym profile so that every run contributes to the GoodGym January challenge (to complete 5,000 good deeds and 50,000kms) and we can give the Hounslow team a run for their money in the quest to be the best.   Finally, please spread the word about our newbie run on the afternoon of Saturday 13th January – it’s both an opportunity for you to bag a bonus extra good deed for yourself and a chance for new runners considering joining GoodGym to try it out in daylight with other new runners.  Details are on the website. All that remains is to say thanks to Andy and Adam from Hounslow for joining us for the evening, and welcome back to Jill and Rosie after the Christmas break.  And a little shout out to Jenna who is doing RED January to raise money for the mental health charity, Mind.  This means she runs every day in January.  Give her a shout if you’d like to support her cause with a donation or just give her a big pat on the back.

Also we discussed missions in Richmond and how we need more people to shout out if they wish to be included in these types of runs. Mission activity in areas can depend on how many runners are mission verified (DBS checked and trained) in an area and then how many runners use the mission selector to let GG know they are free at the weekend to attend a mission. You can do this using this link: https://www.goodgym.org/my/missions/selector. Once 2 people confirm they are available a mission can be set up and booked in. So if you are looking to help out painting some beach huts for a care home in Hampton soon on a weekend then this is where to announce it : ) Happy to talk more with any of you on email or in person next week on the run!

Great job tonight - you all need a pat on the back and great news on Jill signing up for her 1st 10km run! Let's send some good vibes her way!

Have a good week lovely people!